


Silent Night

by Emmbee_89



Series: An Ineffable Christmas [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (omg that got a tag!), 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge 2019 (Good Omens), Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Not Oblivious (Good Omens), Contemplative, Gen, Light Angst, but he is set in his ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21736921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmbee_89/pseuds/Emmbee_89
Summary: It's quiet outside and silent in the bookshop.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: An Ineffable Christmas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570000
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Silent Night

**Author's Note:**

> I'm playing with drawlight's Advent Calendar challenge and will post the ones that come out not-horrible. :)

Outside, it was quiet. The day had come and gone in a blur of color and noise and humanity, like every day since the Not-End. Aziraphale relished it, that stir and busyness, allowed it to remind him that yes, the world was still here, and yes, so was he.

It had been a little over four months since the Apocalypse had failed to occur, and somehow, miraculously, he was still here.

Four months since the last time he’d heard anything from Heaven. Four months of what should’ve been freedom from the orders, the restrictions, the expectations, of his former side.

And yet…

Well, he’d been an angel, a devout servant of God, for his entire existence, and he’d been following those orders, those restrictions, those expectations for far longer than the six thousand years he’d been on Earth (granted, not always _well,_ but still).

Four months compared to the entire not-quite-eternity he’d existed inside those rules was not really enough time to actually adjust to his new life.

The day had been nice, made infinitely better by the company. Crowley had tempted him out for a lunch and a stroll to watch the bustle of humanity. Aziraphale had found himself admiring the lights that had gone up in shop windows up and down the streets.

He’d never been much for the fuss of the holidays, the speed and ferocity of the rush of December in general, but he liked the lights.

“I wonder how the bookshop would look all lit up like that,” he’d mused aloud, pausing to admire one particularly-bright shop window.

Crowley smirked. “If you ever put an elf on your shelf, I will send it back to Hell where it came from.”

“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale tutted, but the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth negated the disapproval of his tone.

“Yeah, they have a whole circle specifically devoted to that shit. Plastic elves, garden gnomes, those creepy dolls humans pretend to like. Little agents of evil, all of ‘em. Stealing souls without anyone knowing.”

Aziraphale had rolled his eyes and took Crowley’s elbow to tug him back to the shop, and the pleasant day had blended seamlessly into a pleasant evening.

But then, just as Aziraphale was working up the nerve to ask Crowley to stay the night, struggling against that old fear he didn’t need to have anymore about maintaining that plausible deniability, the demon had stood up, stretched, and mumbled something about it being time he got on.

“Of course,” Aziraphale agreed, the relief of not having to say anything bolder quickly chased away by his dismay. But he ignored both feelings and only smiled slightly. “Good night.”

There’d been a pause, a single moment of hesitation, from Crowley then, as if he expected something else, something more, something different, to come from the angel’s mouth. Then the moment was gone, and he slipped on his sunglasses and left the bookshop without a backward glance.

This is how it had been between them since the Not-End: a hesitance, an uncertainty, both of them unsure about where things stood between them. Aziraphale occasionally taking Crowley’s arm out on the street, in a moment of boldness remembering that no one from either Head Office could possibly have reason to care; then next, falling into their familiar millennia-old dance of careful distance and plausible deniability.

Aziraphale knew Crowley loved him, deeply and truly, and had for far longer than the angel dared to let himself think. For as cool as he tried to play, the demon was the opposite of subtle, and there was no mistaking the love that poured out of him whenever they met.

And Aziraphale knew he loved him back, just as deeply and truly. He’d lied to himself for as long as he could, dismissing the growing fondness he’d felt over the millennia for his demonic counterpart as being merely a certain angelic pleasure he took in there being someone else in this world he could talk to without the fear of revealing to much, who knew things and been places no human could ever imagine, who knew exactly who — and, more importantly, _what_ — he was and wasn’t afraid.

But it had been decades since Aziraphale realized that he couldn’t lie to himself anymore, since he had finally accepted and used the correct word to describe his feelings for the demon.

And yet, here they were, always still trapped inside that careful dance they’d maintained for six millennia.

Four months was not long enough to break those habits.

Worse, Aziraphale wasn’t sure he wanted to try. If Crowley would reciprocate. If it all had really been too much. If asking for more would damage a relationship Aziraphale had treasured like his prized first editions for longer than books had been around.

So when Crowley had stood up to leave, Aziraphale had let him go without protest.

And now, in the night, the outside world was quiet, and the inside of the bookshop was terribly silent.


End file.
